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As most people have heard by now, the Bemidji City Council earlier this month voted 6-1 to plan for a future Library Park without the presence of Bemidji’s Carnegie Library, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Since the vote occurred, those who want to keep the 102-year-old structure have been speaking out against the council’s actions. Supporters who want to preserve the building certainly have the right to their opinions – and the argument that we should maintain and preserve historic structures whenever possible is valid.

But to those who are saying that the city would lose revenue if the building were demolished is simply not true. The city does not make any money from the building. The Carnegie is occupied by Bemidji Community Art Center, but the BCAC does not pay rent to the city. They do pay the utility bills. But no rent.

I was not able in today’s paper to delve into everything that was said during the public hearing last night on the rental ordinance.

Ten people spoke during the hearing, which lasted just over 30 minutes.

The council did vote 6-0 (Councilor Greg Negard was absent) to accept the revisions as presented, but no vote was taken that indicated whether the council as a whole supports the ordinance. A final vote is expected Oct. 3.

However, later, at the tail end of the meeting, some councilors did make statements addressing the proposed ordinance.

Councilor Rita Albrecht said she tended to agree with those who spoke out against the proposed fee schedule.

The annual rental registration fee schedule, as proposed, is as follows:

– One-unit rental, $100.

– Duplex, $125.

– Buildings with 3-12 units, $150.

– 13-24 units, $200.

– 25 units and up, $300.

Several commenters during the public hearing said the fee schedule is not fair, that the one-unit rental fee is disproportionately higher than the larger rental complexes. Buildings with 25 units would be charged $300, which means each unit at most would be charged $12 each.

Resident Nellie Withoff during the hearing argued that the larger complexes are likely to have more problems than single rental units.

Albrecht later agreed, saying that that some multi-family rental complexes have a high number of police calls.

She asked her fellow councilors if the city fully intended to follow the ordinance and shut down multi-family complexes completely if they are not compliant with the ordinance.

She also asked what the original intent was of the rental ordinance.

City Attorney Al Felix said, as he recalled, there were three points that councilors wanted to address:

– Bad conduct by tenants.

– Unregistered vehicles at rental properties.

– A goal of moving the city from a three-year annual permitting cycle to an annual cycle.

City Manager John Chattin added that, also, councilors had wanted to discourage the conversation of single-family homes to rentals and to encourage the conversion of rentals to single-family homes.

He said the rental ordinance is the council’s “first step” in enacting recommendations from the city’s Quality Neighborhood Initiative.

After the rental ordinance is complete, Chattin said, he believes the city next will address permit parking in neighborhoods and applying the same building codes in the proposed rental ordinance to owner-occupied homes throughout the city limits.

“I think it does meet the original intent of what the council wanted to see done,” he said.

Councilor Kevin Waldhausen served on the rental committee these past three months.

“I believe we came together and brought forth an ordinance we could live with,” he said, noting that not everyone agreed on all points.

He noted that the ordinance can always be revised in the future if it does not work as intended.

“But I believe we need to move on with this,” he said.

Councilor Roger Hellquist, who also served on the committee, appeared to agree, saying the proposed rental ordinance is the culmination of a long process.

Further, he said, the city in naming committee members represented a cross-section of Bemidji rental properties. One landlord oversees large complexes, one provides housing to low-income renters, and one was a single-unit landlord.

“This process went as well as it could. There was give and take on all sides,” Hellquist said. “I think it’s a living document. We’re not marrying this thing. It’s going to be changed from year to year. It’s going to have an annual review. This is where we’re starting from.”

Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities: City Manager John Chattin and Johnson.

Downtown Development Authority liaison: Hellquist.

DWI Court: Mayor Dave Larson.

Greater Bemidji Area Joint Planning Board: Johnson, Larson, Councilor Greg Negard and Councilor Jim Thompson. (Note: This is interesting in that Thompson is returning to the JPB after having served as a representative for the Northern Town Board.)

Headwaters Regional Development Commission: Johnson.

Heritage Preservation Commission: Thompson and citizen Lou Marchand. (There still is a vacancy available if anyone is interested.)

Housing and Redevelopment Authority: Negard and citizen Diane Morey.

Housing Appeals Board: Councilor Rita Albrecht and citizens David Kloha and Anthony Warno. (There still is a vacancy available if anyone is interested.)

Joint Economic Development Commission: Albrecht.

Joint Planning Commission: Citizens Matthew Dyrdahl and Nicki Lemmer. (There still is a vacancy available if anyone is interested.)

South Shore Proposal Review: Albrecht, Negard and Waldhausen. (Note: Waldhausen was added as a member Monday night. He had served on the committee previously, but Albrecht was proposed to be named to the committee due to her past work experience. Waldhausen said he wanted to continue serving on the committee and the council voted unanimously to name all three to the committee.)

I promise this is my last blog update for today. I just wanted to include a link to the full article I wrote on tonight’s council decision to allow for a 2 a.m. bar closing time.

Readers will notice that the council did, kind of, end up discussing the 2 a.m. issue. Councilors did not state their positions prior to making their votes, but three councilors later discussed their opinions of the issue right before the council adjourned.

Personally, I would have rather seen councilors state their positions at the time at which they cast their votes – while members of the public were still in the audience – but I did appreciate the comments from Barb, Jerry and Greg (and the mayor, too, although he did not specifically address the 2 a.m. bar closing time).

So that’s enough for one day. Maybe tomorrow there will be more to say.

I was going to just wait until tonight’s council meeting, but after discussing it with a few conversations with people smarter than myself, I decided to find out for certain.

This is what I learned: If the city approves the 2 a.m. bar time and if Beltrami County, after going through its ordinance process, votes to prohibit alcohol sales at county bars after 1 a.m., both ordinances would be in effect. The Beltrami County ordinance would not overrule the city ordinance, so a city bar could remain open until 2 a.m. while a county bar would not.

I don’t often read newspapers on weekends. I kind of take a news break for two days. But on Sunday, my family was going to, finally, finish all of our Christmas shopping. So I opened the Pioneer with the intention of just going through the advertisements and coupons.

But my eye was drawn to this story on the front page, the article I wrote on the retiring three city councilors. I saw that we had run with the story an older photo of Barb Meuers, when I asked specifically last week if we had something more recent, so I was a little perplexed to see the photo that ran.

And, as it happens, when I take one quick glance at the front page, I want to see all of the stories. So I flipped open the whole front page and saw this headline, below the fold: “Beltrami County considers 1 a.m. closing for bars.”

Um, what?

So our shopping excursion was delayed a bit longer as I read the story, written by Brad Swenson, who covers the Beltrami County Board of Commissioners, about a possible Beltrami County ordinance that would prohibit bars in the county from selling alcohol after 1 a.m.

If approved, the county’s ordinance could possibly conflict with the city of Bemidji’s alcohol ordinance. As most of my blog readers know, the city tonight is expected to hold the final reading and vote on an ordinance revision that would allow city bars the option of serving alcohol later, until 2 a.m.

Does that change anything for tonight? I don’t know. But I’m interested to hear if the council addresses it at all.

The Bemidji City Council will meet Friday afternoon in two special meetings.

First, the council will convene at 5 p.m. as itself to discuss (and, presumably, approve) an amendment to state grant agreements for bonding dollars used to construct the Bemidji Regional Event Center. Then, councilors will consider approving the naming rights contract with Sanford Health for the BREC, which is expected to become The Sanford Center.

Immediately following that meeting, the City Council will convene as the Bemidji Economic Development Authority to also consider the naming rights agreement.

Maybe I have attended too many council meetings. Or maybe I just assumed (bad idea) that readers know what I know. Either way, apparently, I did not make it very prominent news in today’s Pioneer that the Bemidji City Council did, in fact, hold the first reading of an ordinance that would allow for a 2 a.m. bar closing time.

I did a preview on the council meeting for Sunday’s Pioneer, so regular readers (I thought) would be aware that the the item was on the agenda for yesterday’s meeting. And then I included a very brief note in a a very brief story in today’s Pioneer saying the first reading was held.

Why not do more?

Well, I could have. I could have included the one paragraph that the council did hold the first reading and then a whole bunch of repeated information that already has been reported before. But, really, the whole first reading took up all of maybe 2 minutes of the council meeting. In fact, it went by so quickly that I missed it, because someone had come into the meeting a few minutes late and asked me a question about the agenda packet. I actually had to re-watch the 2-minute portion of the council meeting when I returned to the office to make sure that the first reading was, in fact, held.

Not that that is unusual. Most (not all) first readings of ordinances are held without discussion. Sometimes there are ordinances that prompt discussion or debate about definitions or terms (i.e. ordinances that govern the allowance of keeping chickens and farm animals). But, generally, most debate does not occur until the second reading, during which the council holds the public hearing on the proposed ordinance.

So come Dec. 6, I expect more debate. From both the public and the council.

And, really, that is what Councilor Kevin Waldhausen has been seeking from the beginning of this most recent 2 a.m. discussion. Whether you agree with him or not, Kevin all along has said he wants to see the ordinance process through to give the public a chance to voice its opinions.

Sure, the public could have before voiced its thoughts in letters, e-mails and phone calls during the previous work sessions that discussed the 2 a.m. bar closing time. But never before (that I am aware of) has the ordinance process on the proposed change been held. Never before was a formal public hearing held.

One of the more fun city stories I have written in recent years was the effort by then-Bemidji State University student Trevor Plendl to start his own curbside recycling business, Plendl Environmental L.L.C.

I wrote a story on the business in July 2009, when he then had 16 customers. Today, he has more than 400.

My interest was again piqued this afternoon when I saw the company listed on the Bemidji City Council’s consent agenda for Monday, when the council will likely approve an agreement that will allow Plendl Recycling to pick up recyclables in the city limits.

City Manager John Chattin writes, “Council action will be a move in the direction of legitimizing the entire realm of existing operation or activities.”

Plendl Recycling filled a void left in 2007, when the city of Bemidji opted to discontinue its curbside recycling program.